


Beneath the apple blossom

by Baryshnikov



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Birds, Death, Falling In Love, Gardens, Ghost Draco, M/M, Sad, Spring, impossible love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 17:09:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18319637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baryshnikov/pseuds/Baryshnikov
Summary: Draco likes to sit in the garden during spring, he likes it, even more, when Harry joins him.





	Beneath the apple blossom

Draco sat under the pink tree in the hidden garden. It had been his mother’s favourite place to sit when the world seemed so bad, and she needed to gain perspective. The walls kept her sheltered from the tumultuous world that grew outside. She had brought him here every spring to walk upon the grass, feel its softness beneath his feet. She had shown him the way down the path that was always shaded and overgrown with ferns, to the gate that always clicked so loud. They came when the flowers were blooming, just to watch them, to see their beauty with their own eyes and learn the true value of nature. Even when the darkness had encroached upon their lives, threatening to swallow whole every shred of the loveliness they knew, his mother found solace in the silence under the pink tree. It was not so silent now. The birds had returned, and their gentle twitters carried on the air. If Draco looked up, then he could see their nests, small beautiful things that they built with so much care. The birds would often land beside him: brown blackbirds that tilted their heads and seemed to smile, the little tiny blue tits that flittered around the flowerbeds, and the song thrush that would chirp the sweetest songs. His favourite though was the collared dove that always came alone, so regal, and yet modest. There was no special reason why that bird caught his eye, other than it seemed so lonely. That maybe, that beautiful creature understood him, that it knew what it was like to sit alone on a warm spring day and feel so cold inside.  
~  
There was an overwhelming sense of peace to this place that Draco loved. It was somewhere the breeze could not cool the air, nor rustle the trees. It was somewhere that angels seemed to gather in the form of a flutter of butterflies. It was also the solitude that nature provided with its gentle pastel hues, the colours of a sacred secret wonderland that he, and he alone, could savour. Well, not quite, for one day, he had been sitting with his eyes closed, picturing the birds that he could hear, how they would flitter and flutter through the air, weightless on their wings, and the sudden clatter of the gate had made him look over. Harry had been fumbling with it, trying to get the latch to click back shut. When he finally did it, Harry glanced up at him with the hint of a lopsided smile, and Draco blushed and looked away. In this small square of garden, there was only one bench, so Harry sat beside him. They sat in silence, just sharing the solitude, examining how the border of lavender mixed with the daffodils, and despite best efforts, simple daisies and pretty dandelions still grew in the grass. It was an easy kind of beauty, the sort that needed no fanfare or flourishes, but only humble appreciation. To Draco, Harry was this garden, unpretentious, gorgeous in his unadorned way. He did not need rare flowers or extraordinary colours to decorate himself in order to make others like him, for he had a natural charm, more attributable to wild meadows than the cultivated lands that Draco was made it. In fact, he was nothing like Draco, but somehow Harry still seemed to know what it was like to sit alone on a warm spring day and feel so cold inside.  
~  
Harry came more often after that, always causing the gate to rattle. He always came and he sat on the bench beside him and gave a small smile that reminded Draco of the white gravel that made pathways through the other gardens. Although Draco always fumbled, hands twisting together when Harry spoke, because he’d always been nervous around the things, he knew he liked, but couldn’t find the words to explain, Harry didn’t seem mind. He sat with so much patience and listened to the pain as though it were a beautiful bird song. In turn, Draco listened, let Harry speak and share with him the tribulations of being a hero so young. For their own reasons, they both needed the quietude of nature, the opportunity to sit amongst the rows of pink and yellow, swirling together like a sunset that had melted to the ground. It was such a beautiful sight, to sit and watch the glow of flowers, their sweet perfume staining the air like a confectioner’s shop; Harry was a beautiful sight too. Sitting, daydreaming, searching for his dreams among the grass. Draco wished he could take his hand, squeeze his fingers between his own, and tell him that the world was not as cruel as it seemed sometimes. But he could not do that, for what if Harry did not feel the same? What if his smiles and his stories of old school days were but light entertainment? What if his pleasant obnoxious laughter that scared the birds away, was at Draco and not with him? So, Draco continued to sit alone on a warm spring day and feel so cold inside.  
~  
Draco had been scared for so long that it took him by surprise when one day Harry had raised up his hand as if to connect it with his, in that special primal way that humans do when they cannot express their feelings with mere words. Draco had smiled and raised his hand too, and there they stayed, suspended with the sun shining down, bathing them in that distinctive light of mid-afternoon. But for all their closeness, in heart and in spirit, they did not touch, because Draco could not touch, because Draco was dead. Now the sun's light was boiling over and immersing them in gold, Draco could see the pain that it caused Harry, so heavy in his eyes, such a deep sadness and probably guilt, because Harry felt guilty for things he shouldn’t. Draco wanted, more than anything in the world, to apologise, to say he was sorry for dying, that he hadn’t meant to hurt anyone. For he had not died bravely, he had not died a hero, or for a worthy cause, he had merely died as so many other people had. His body lay beneath the earth, and his parents cried for what they had done. And now, now Harry sat with him, and he too had salt water in his eyes, threatening to spill over and wet the bench they sat on with his tears. Draco would have loved to laugh, to hold his hand and kiss his cheek and call him sentimental. But he couldn’t for he was nothing but a ghost. It did not matter what Harry said, what Harry believed about the possibilities of their hopeless situation, because they could not happen, death had made sure of that. Anyway, it was simply foolish of Draco to have fallen in love when he had nothing but heartbreak to give. So, they sat, and they stared at each other, fingers only millimetres apart, and the pink blossom falling around them, like candyfloss rain. But they did not notice, for they were just watching, hoping, sitting together alone on a warm spring day and feeling so cold inside.

**Author's Note:**

> I will apologise as I wrote this in like an hour when I should have been sleeping so it's probably not the best, I might re-write it at some point.


End file.
